Ethical dilemmas for nursing home doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nursing home residents were particularly vulnerable to a serious clinical course of COVID-19. It was therefore decided early in the pandemic that nursing homes needed to be protected through measures such as testing and isolation regimens and restrictions on visiting. This entailed new procedures and guidelines for nursing home doctors. Norwegian and international studies show that the pandemic presented new ethical dilemmas for healthcare staff. The aim of this study was to provide a better understanding of the ethical issues faced by nursing home doctors during the pandemic.

Nine semi-structured in-depth interviews with doctors at five nursing homes in Bergen were analysed using Attride-Stirling's thematic network analysis.

The doctors told of challenges related to deciding the level of treatment, setting limits for palliative care, adapting visiting restrictions, and assessing the use of coercion with regard to testing and isolation. This entailed difficult ethical considerations whereby doctors were faced with conflicts of interest and value judgements, central to which was consideration for the individual resident versus society.

The nursing home doctors in our study found it difficult to find a balance between protecting the residents' autonomy and preventing the spread of infection.